


Love is a Mystery

by endlesspossibilites



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drarry, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Hogwarts Fifth Year, M/M, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, POV Harry Potter, Slow Burn, Slow Burn Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Soft Draco Malfoy, drarry happens, oops i did it again
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27545740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endlesspossibilites/pseuds/endlesspossibilites
Summary: Harry is happy to live with Sirius Black, his godfather, over the summer before Fifth Year, despite learning that all of Sirius' close friends have suddenly left him out of their reinstated organisation the Order of the Phoenix.But there's a catch that Harry doesn't know before arriving: Draco Malfoy is living with him too.A tale of nightmares, domestic dinners and overcoming boundaries. The life of a small unlikely family, of two teen enemies turned friends then something more.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Sirius Black & Harry Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	Love is a Mystery

I - Time lapse

At the stroke of midnight, on the night that will be the thirty first of July, it is Harry Potter’s birthday. He is finally turning fifteen, and was about to go into his 5th Year at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, and he receives a letter from his godfather when his watch strikes the new day.

Sirius Black is an ex-convict, a number one escaped fugitive who is so dangerous that he wrangled out of the most secure prisons in the world by transforming into a dog, and simultaneously sings to Madonna at nights when he’s lonely.

This, Harry has learnt from his letters, which are typically very long with scrawled penmanship and detailing everything he has gotten up to in the last couple of weeks. Sirius, who remains permanently locked in his residence due to being a fugitive, is going house-crazy and thus spends most of his time attempting new hobbies and verbally abusing his omnipresent house elf Kreacher. The hatred between the elf and his owner is mutual, and amusing for Harry who remains himself essentially housebound with his official guardians, non-magic folk the Dursleys, who have to keep him over the summer, albeit not wanting to.

This birthday letter, however, is short for Sirius. Hedwig encourages him to open it immediately with a small peck, and he reads through it.

_Happy Birthday Harry!_

_Let us hope this birthday will be better spent than the last - although I warn you, my present will not top the Christmas one from Third Year. I would like to invite you to spend the next month at Grimmauld Place with me, unless you have had any better offers. A word of caution - we’re not great company, but it might make for better competition than the Dursleys…I hope at least._

_I’ll keep this brief, but if your aunt and uncle are okay with it, someone will come and get you later on today. See you soon_

_Best,_

_Snuffles_

Harry finds himself grinning as he tucks the envelope back, reaching out in the dark to grab a scrap of paper to scrawl back to Sirius, a short message about how the Dursleys will think it’s Christmas come early, and a reciprocated see you soon. Suddenly his birthday has become a whole lot more interesting, especially if it means not seeing his so-called-guardians for another year, when he has to come back for the summer.

Hedwig takes the scrap to Sirius, disappearing into the night, and he sits and watches his owl become just a speck in the distance before finally resting his head and dreaming of a month of freedom with one of his favourite people in the world.

—

Grey eyes haunt his dreams, flashes of them which make him squirm uncomfortably, as well as Voldemort’s laugh and the kicker: Cedric’s death, over and over again. So many variations, all ending in Harry crying over his body, before another flash of unknown grey eyes, saying nothing but everything at the same time, and then he shoots awake with a shiver, at four in the morning, suddenly cold to the bone and thinking of the boy he watched die right in front of him.

It’s not a pleasant start to his birthday morning, but he pushes those thoughts aside and packs, briefly, quickly.

He’s gloriously 15 years old, well into his teenage years, but definitely not following the ordinary life of a teen. Harry had seemed to miss out on a lot of the things deemed appropriate for teens, like casual first relationships, and had skipped straight to the death-defying confrontations with the most powerful villain in the Wizarding world who had a personal vendetta against him. Yeah, not exactly a normal kid - not even for a wizard.

Enough about Voldemort on his birthday, it would just lead to him moping about Ced- no they didn’t need to go into that right now. Perhaps it was embarrassing to think that he would wake up to birthday presents, but it was disheartening to see not even a small pile by his window. Hedwig had hooted at him sadly in the morning, but she clearly had nothing for him. He felt himself blush at the assumption that at least Hermione and Ron would have gotten him something.

They had in previous years, having known that Harry was usually alone on his birthday, sent him care packages and presents. Letters explaining everything they would get up to, but there had been no word of them since he’d left Hogwarts on perfect terms with his best friends. No letters, no presents, in fact not a ghost of any wizarding folk except Sirius. It had made him feel isolated and alone with only the Dursleys to provide human interaction. He’d considered asking Sirius about it but had decided that made him look desperate and sent, instead, a simple response to the lack of reply from his best friends entitled Guys?

Primarily though, it had made him angry. They had known this would be a particularly hard summer for him, especially given that Ron and Hermione would spend most of it together. He was angry that they hadn’t even taken the time to write their best friend a letter, send it through. Harry had briefly wondered whether Dobby had stepped in again, but as the elf was no longer tethered to the Malfoys, he would probably have no idea about nefarious happenings at Hogwarts the next year and was unlikely to interrupt his mail.

It could be Draco Malfoy himself interrupting the mail that Ron & Hermione sent, but Harry didn’t think the boy cared enough to ruin his summer. They had a rivalry, sure, but it basically just extended from the moment they arrive on the train and then left it for the summer. Malfoy was probably training to be a mini Death Eater himself, helping out his wretched father who Harry had seen in the graveyard after the happenings of the Third Task Harry tried so hard to avoid thinking about.

This was what happened when Harry was left alone, without school to occupy his brain - his thoughts turned dark. So he continued packing, and thought of Quidditch, because that often managed to take his brain off things.

By 5 o’clock in the afternoon, Harry had been going crazy overthinking Sirius’ letter - had it been a joke? Had someone else sent it? Was Sirius not actually going to send someone to pick him up? A simple phone call wouldn’t suffice, and there was no point sending Hedwig out again - she was already exhausted from the previous trips, and slightly pissed off at him. And yet - there was a sudden pounding on the front door downstairs, and his heart thumped, rushing downstairs with his bags packed and flung it open wide, then faltered.

His collector standing at the door wasn’t anyone he had expected. No - this man was from the Ministry of Magic, a smart guy in a tailored suit with the little MOM pin on his lapel. He was holding a briefcase - likely a portkey itself - and had an expression like he was trying very hard not to grin.

“Hello,” the man tips his head in a way that is reminiscent of Sirius, but the accent American. Related? He notes the arrival of Uncle Vernon behind him, arms crossed and a frowning face, and changes demeanour. “Is this the residence of one Mr Harry Potter? The Ministry of- well we need his appearance as the result of an inquiry regarding his previous school year.”

Harry feels his heart sink. Of course the ministry had to grab him when he was just about to get away from the Dursleys. Naturally a problem would present itself right at the most opportune moment. That, simply, seemed to be the way things went in Harry’s life.

Uncle Vernon was toying between being ecstatic and irritated out of his mind. He tested the waters - “And this, uh, inquiry…it doesn’t require the presence of a guardian does it?”

“No, Sir. We’ll take the boy off your hands for the summer and deliver him to school in September, no trouble at all. We don’t, after all, want him to be let loose.” Surely the Ministry wouldn’t keep him locked there, all summer? No - surely they would put him up in the Leaky Cauldron like in Third Year, when Fudge had visited him after the Aunt Marge incident. Harry wouldn’t just be shut in an office watching wizards come and go everywhere whilst Fudge shot him question after question.

His uncle avidly agrees, flinching but denying the outstretched hand the Ministry man outstretched with a cocky grin, but rushing Harry out the door without questioning why his bags are already packed. The last thing the Dursleys want is something weird happening at their doorstep, in broad daylight. Petunia is the gossiper, not the gossipee, and whenever anyone inquires about the nice boy with the scruffy hair Vernon has a pre-mature heart attack.

“Harry, Harry,” The man punches him playfully in the shoulder. “It’s been a while.” There’s a swift change in demeanour, back to the guy who could almost be Sirius in his movements, and it takes him two seconds to realise that the American twang has quite simply dropped.

He can hardly believe it, but he has to check, “Sirius?”

“I can’t believe your Uncle didn’t catch on. Always a good time to use my acting skills, and you said he responds best to authority, and likes it when you seem to get in trouble. It worked.” Sirius-with-not-Sirius’-face chuckles, seeming tickled that his devious plan worked.

“You fooled me,” Harry mutters. They’re walking along Privet Drive in the most inconspicuous way possible. It is likely Uncle Vernon is still peering out the window to make sure they look normal enough, or one of the neighbours is spying. So they mustn’t do anything out of order, not until they’re in a secluded place. “I didn’t think you liked Transfiguration much.”

“James was always the star at it, of course, but I picked some of it up. Your dad had a book that his father gave him, about becoming an auror. Part of it, a large part, is all about disguise. We learnt that - proved ruddy useful in the war, and well…now, of course.”

The anecdote about his father, James Potter was something only a few people did. Most had either never met his parents, only the memory of them, and some adults couldn’t face telling the orphaned boy stories about the young couple. Of course, he’d been told some tales by his Potions Professor - Snape - that were rather negative in tone. Another benefit of Sirius being around, as well as the exuberant energy. He always had good tales up his sleeve, ones that shone his dad in such a positive light and made Harry ache for his parent’s presence. He’d seen them, last June…when he was fighting Vol-

He snapped out of his reverie as Sirius was saying something about how nice it was to get fresh air when they walked along the forested path. “Hey - hey! You shouldn’t have come yourself! You’re in hiding Sirius, there are manhunts for you, especially now. It’s dangerous for you to even be transfigured.” Seeing Sirius had made all the complaints about being stuck in the house pale away, he’d just been transfixed by his presence at the door. “You could have got someone else — Remus, maybe — to come and get me.”

“He’s not talking to me,” Sirius explains, opening his mouth to admit something but falling short. Okay, they’ll come back to unpacking why Remus isn’t speaking to him in a bit, but reprimanding is in place.

“Or — or Dumbledore could have sent someone, he would have understood. Anyone but you!”

“I didn’t tell them. They sort of think you’re going to the Burrow in a week’s time. This is…uh, me kidnapping you.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to go to the Burrow.”

“Wait - you don’t? Why? Ron and Hermione will be there, all of them will be. It’s the new headquarters,” Sirius says miserably.

“Headquarters of what?”

“I’ll- I’ll explain later. Why aren’t you stoked about the Burrow? Do you actually want me to kidnap you? I could deliver you to the Burrow if you’d prefer, I just-” He cuts himself off.

“They haven’t,” Harry scuffs his feet on the floor, “They haven’t talked to me since the train.”

“No letters?” Sirius stops in his tracks. It’s a shock, but not as much is it had been to Harry, sitting essentially just in that room, time ticking by as he received nothing. “None?”

“Yup,” Harry says, feeling the rise of a lump in his throat. “All summer.”

“Harry, you should have _said_.” Sirius ruffles a hand through his hair, completely messing it up from his ministry persona. It’s weird to see what are obviously Sirius’ emotions through a face that just isn’t Sirius. Now he actually looks at his godfather, he can see the clothes don’t quite fit, and the badge on his lapel is slightly skewed. If he’d just looked at him, he’d have been able to tell that that was not Sirius.

He can’t seem to voice the words _I thought I was just being weak_ , not even looking at the floor, so they settle into an uncomfortable silence, walking along the forest. Harry hasn’t even questioned how they’re getting to where they are going - hell, he’s never even gone to Sirius’ house since the two years straight of knowing him.

Harry clears his throat. “How- how are we getting there?”

“Portkey to outside the house. It’s got charms around it, otherwise we’d just apparate. I thought, well…I wanted to go for a walk before, and this seemed to be the best option.”

Harry wasn’t well acquainted with portkeys, but he’d used one to get to the Quidditch World Cup which made him slightly less anxious about using one. The problem of “there” was still a problem to solve but perhaps slightly later.

Sirius was hauling Harry’s suitcase up the slight hill, then put it down, swore lightly and checked for no passerbys. There were none, and Sirius whispered one of the first spells Harry had been taught - Wigardium Leviosa. Still echoed the laughs and giggles of First Year, before he’d even been friends with Hermione. Before he’d faced Voldemort at 11, and then 12, and then 14. Before discovering he had a godfather. Only just after discovering he was a wizard.

With the help of the charm, the pace going up the hill increased rapidly, and soon they were placing their hands on a rusty key that had been left there, and soon in a fast movement that seemed to stretch Harry out and then return him back to his normal state. They smash landed in a grimy street, dark and dingy. Somehow, even though it was early evening in the middle of summer, this street was darker than any of the others around the area.

“Welcome,” Sirius holds out his hands, “To Grimmauld Place.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! This is the first of many chapters and I thought I would get it out into the world to see what people think of it. After all...there are endless possibilities for where it could go.
> 
> A geeky thing about this fic - the title and all of the chapter names will be named after songs by Ludovico Einaudi, a brilliant composer who I love to listen to on occasion. This fic gives me an excuse to use it as a rec. 
> 
> Thanks for reading - tell me what you think!


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